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Vanilla Garlic is my nifty food blog that I tinker at with essays about life and food that I like to think are humorous or thoughtful. I also work as a freelance writer and a cookbook author. Whether I succeed at any of this debatable.

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Tuesday, August 1, 2006

The Gilroy Garlic Festival has become for the food world what the Rocky Horror Picture Show has for B-Movie lovers and college students; epic with a cult following. Some prefer to dress in a yellow sequined speedo, others like to wear garlic hats (I like to go as Dr. Frankenfurter myself).

Yet, in my opinion doing the Time Warp is way more fun. Not that the Garlic Fest wasn't an enjoyable experience, it's just that I would rather call it "Fair" more than a "Festival." I call it this because it was a more of an arts and crafts show, surrounded by thousands of garlic food booths. Not that the food wasn't good, it was delish and will be covered shortly, it's the fact that I expected cooking and food demos, maybe something educational, or something that wasn't two separate beer gardens taking up a good portion of the park, and a freaking two mile hike in the powedry dust in my good flip flops. Just what I wanted after a two hour drive from Davis. It was worth my spending 90 minutes there to make the two mile hike back to the car, my feeties caked in dust, and drive the two hours back.

The food did kick quite a bit of ass though. Crawdads, crab, steak, fries, ice cream, cakes, and anything you can think of was infused with garlic. Seriously, the food made me starry eyed.Due to the festival prices we only got three things to eat, but hey, it's festival food and the awesome taste and grease of it is what makes it so good and worth it.* Rob and I had some garlic fries, and some key lime and garlic deep fried calamari with a key lime dip/sauce/pesto. Seriously, tasted like garlicky, tangy, I dunno... if you could dice up unicorn giggles and deep-fry em', this is what they would taste like. Serious magic here people. MA-GIC.

We also had some garlic and almond ice cream. Quite tasty. Like almond vanilla ice cream with a very subtle garlic flavor that sneaks up on you in the back. Why hasn't Baskin Robbins picked up on this?

In the end, we smelled like garlic all weekend and we're happy for it. If you're in the area or a hardcore food lover, make the trip at least once in your life to try the food and check things out. However, in my opinion, it's definetly a one-time thing.

*With the exception of those deep fried Twinkies. Seriously, those things taste like choking.

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comments:

Sorry you weren't more thrilled with the Garlic Fest. I love the fest, even though I missed it this year. I even love the kitchy county fair aspect of it -- perhaps my it's Midwestern sensibilities talking. Did you see any of the cooking demos on the kitchen stage thing? I always find those lots of fun, and a slightly more cosmo part of the event.

I'll have to show you my garlic bobble head sometime, a souvineer from the year bobble heads were a ridiculous trend.

Hey, you're leaving a comment! That's pretty darn cool, so thanks. If you have any questions or have found an error on the site or with a recipe, please e-mail me and I will reply as soon as possible.~Garrett